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Facinatiing Facts About Cycle Speedway

While taking a break from the daunting task of compiling a list of every team there's ever been, cycle speedway historian Dave Hunting has been rummaging through his archives and has sent us in a wonderful array of fascinating facts which we'll be publishing in the coming weeks, in fact we think this page may be so popular that it could become a permanent feature.  

FIRST FATALITY ON CYCLE SPEEDWAY TRACK

A verdict of accidental death was recorded by the Tottenham (North London) coroner on George Hope Wynne (aged 77), who had rushed onto the Caledonian Lions track when a race was in progress. He was hit by an oncoming rider, Ken Scott, who tried to avoid Mr Wynne but could not help crashing into him. Mr Wynne was taken to hospital where he later died.

The year was 1949, but the exact date is unknown

SKID KIDS ASKED TO PAY RATES AND TAX

Cycle Speedway teams, youngsters who race on blitz sites and have become known as “skid -kids”, face a threat to their sport which may make it difficult for them to carry on.

Two teams, the Peckham Stars and Ruskin Flyers, who race on a blitz site in South London, have been presented with a bill for £12 as rates for the site.  And in future they will have to pay £1 a week for rates and Schedule “A” tax. Since the club's only income is from collections which net less than £1 a week, the skid-kids may have to close down.
 
The National Amateur Cycle Speedway Association has been asked to fight the case because it is thought that other teams may soon have the same problem.

Trouble is a fence that the two teams put up around the bombed site of a church school in Camberwell, S.E. Councillor Henry Hasler, chairman of the South-East London Cycle Speedway Control Board, said last night: “As soon as we did that last September our bomb site became rateable. Even if we took the fence down right away we would still have to pay the rates of £6 a quarter.”

“The Inland Revenue are responsible for rating and valuation and they wrote to the Control Board and told us we would have to pay the money.”

“And as soon as we were rated another branch of Inland Revenue were hot on our trail-- the Income Tax authorities. They said that because the site was rateable it was 'beneficially occupied.' And they said we had to pay income tax.”

“The youngsters have built up this sport by themselves and it will be a tragedy if taxation forces them to drop it.”

“Many will return to wandering about the streets as they did before.”  

Daily Mirror 26th February 1951

SKID KIDS CALL ON THE DUKE

Two “ Skid Kids “ from Clapham, London – cycle speedway riders – were received at Clarence House by the Duke of Edinburgh's personal secretary. They are Tom Gregory, aged 18, of Union Grove, and Johnny Pullen , aged 20, of St Alphonsus Road, and they took the Duke a photo of their team, the Clapham Panthers, signed and inscribed , as well as a letter wishing the King a speedy and full recovery “on behalf of thousands of cycle speedway supporters.” 

A former shipmate of the Duke, Mr George Kirby, aged 31, of Chesterton Road, Ladbroke Grove, London, wrote to Clarence House appealing for aid in the team's struggle to get a track and the National Playing Fields Association, of which the Duke is president, is helping the campaign.

News Of The World - 30 September 1951

SKID KIDS TOOK COLLECTION FOR CHURCH

Cycle Speedway boys at the Old Woking Jets, at Woking (Surrey), sent £1 of their collection to the parish church funds.  But after thanking them, the Old Woking Parish Church Council sent another letter, saying they did not want any more money collected on Sundays.

One of the council members, Mr Humphrey Ryde, wrote to Mr L. Pike, manager of the Jets:  “Your Sunday meetings not only prevent boys from attending Sunday School, but also draw away those who are already regular Sunday School boys.”

Mr Pike said last night “We keep our club going on collections, but the lads readily agreed to my suggestion that it would be nice to send a pound to church funds when they were hard up.”

A parent of one rider said: “What we cannot understand is why the church kept the pound if the principle is wrong.”

Daily Mirror - 21st March 1951

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Our first contribution comes 60 years to the day that the article was first published in one of the biggest newspapers of the the time, the Sunday Pictorial.  See what you think!

COUNCIL SETS FIRE TO “SKID-KIDS” TRACK - posted 15 April 2011

Eight teenaged boys - each not so very far from tears - stood round a bonfire on a London bombed site yesterday. Their leader, Tiger Blackwell, 17, stared first into the flames of the bonfire, then watched unhappily as the workmen dug busily all around him.

Tiger and his friends are skid-kids – members of the London Lions cycling speedway club. It was the London Lions race-track, built by the boys in their evening spare time, that the workmen were digging up. And on the bonfire were their wooden safety fence, their stewards box and their starting gate. 

Tiger told the Pictorial: “We went to the track to get it ready for a championship meeting in the afternoon. We are members of  the  Wembley and District Cycling League and all our boys - they range from thirteen to eighteen - are mad about racing”.

“Then we found the workmen. They told us they were acting on the instructions of Paddington Borough Council”.

Mr G Brookes, manager of the skid-kids, said “I thought that with so much crime going on it would be a good idea to interest boys in the sport. I went to Paddington Housing Office. An official said there had been complaints from residents of obscene language and hooliganism.  But my boys are not responsible. Crowds of other youths use the site when we are not on the track.”

Sunday Pictorial - 15th April 1951